Lover of God, nature, wildlife, birds, gardening, photography, travel, simple living, health, pets and seeking a peaceful, healing lifestyle. Life has many hurts and sorrows but within "the [divine] nature in us" we CAN overcome.

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Thursday, January 3, 2013

Do You Know How Big God Is?

by Donna L. Watkins

I find myself more and more meditating on being able to comprehend how big God really is. Because if we can begin to grasp only a tiny comprehension of God's bigness, we will see our current circumstances in a whole new perspective. It's easy to let our emotions run away with our thoughts turning to anger, sadness, despair, etc. and those mental feelings then affect our physical bodies and hormones and we can end up with depression when our chemical balances get messed up from our thoughts.

Our first thoughts of a bad circumstance will determine how we handle the circumstance. If we begin to praise God and to think of how much God loves us and is sharing our pain in this event, we can grab hold of something bigger than the problem. We can keep our heads above water.

If we don't even include God, or worse yet, blame Him for whatever happened thinking He allowed it, we can feel all alone and angry. [Read "Does God Punish Us?"]

The Bible says that what we think we become (Prov. 23:7). You can't spend 10 minutes thinking sinful thoughts (anger is sin) and not open yourself up for the devil to sift. The longer you remain in a state of despair, the more your physical body will begin to agree with your state of mind. Jesus confronts this futile attitude in Matthew 6:25- 34.

We should walk in Light and Truth knowing that we have been given "power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you" (Luke 10:19). That's a wonderful spiritual promise to believers. We must take God's Word literally and know that it is alive and active and will change circumstances around you if you walk in it and plant it in your heart till you truly believe it with your whole heart, not just mental acknowledgement.

Ultimately we have the choice on what trouble will create in our lives. We all know people who seem to roll with the punches and remain at peace. They have a different way of thought ... they are probably less likely to be control freaks also. When we accept Jesus as our Savior we are to let Him be Lord of our lives. That means we give up the rights to our own lives, so we shouldn't be trying to control our circumstances anyway.

Emotions can run away with you in troubled times. You have to make sure you don't take too many steps down that road that leads to feeling like hell is on earth. Jesus came to give us life abundantly and we can walk in that if we make the choice. It's always about our choice, our free will to choose how we want to walk out this life on earth. Every action begins with a thought, so we can't let our emotions rule. [Read "Harnessing Your Emotions"]

You must see yourself healed or out of debt or whatever "picture" you need to paint in your mind to replace what you've been looking at. Living in the peace of God will change all the relationships in your life. Ponder the magnitude of our Father. The more we grow to love Him, the more we bring God's promises and blessings into our lives from the spiritual realm. The circumstances are the devil's smoke screen of despair and discouragement. He distorts the reality of what we have in the spirit, the inheritance we have in the Kingdom, and makes us believe it's what life looks like ... kinda like the House of Mirrors at state fairs. It's not real!

One of the ways I stay focused on God and not the problem is to think about how big God is. Think about something bigger like the universe. It's probably been a long time since you stood in the dark and viewed the sky. First of all, with the light pollution that is so prevalent around us, it's hard to find a piece of dark earth at night. Even when we do, we gaze skyward and feel a sense of the magnitude of God, but yet there is an overwhelming feeling that we're just not getting it at all.

Our finite minds cannot imagine the depths of the universe. A universe that is 47 light years in radius. My mind tunes out with all the bigger than life numbers discussed when astronomers talk about the universe and its galaxies. It's just too much to grasp. But there is a YouTube video that does a great job of transferring enough understanding that has just filled me with an awe of who our God is.

In 1995 the Hubble telescope stared for ten days at a random patch of sky that looked completely empty. The results were nothing less than humbling. Three thousand galaxies filled the image, detected in a space that looked empty.

We live on a planet, one of eight in our solar system. You've studied these planets in school science projects showing how they rotate and the relative sizes to each other. Our planets orbit a rather unremarkable star and our star is 1 of 100-200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The Hubble telescope allows us to get a larger image of the universe, but our minds are still blown away by the hugeness of it all.

In 2003 the Hubble did it again in another empty space in the sky, staying focused for 11 days with improved detectors and filters and that time they saw "The Ultra Deep Field." This is the farthest ever seen. Over 10,000 galaxies are in that picture of that "empty" spot in the sky, and each one of those galaxies have millions and millions of stars and each star has the possibility of planets orbiting it.

"He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them" (Psalm 147:4).

This is what is seen when we stare at a blank piece of sky where nothing appears to be. There is a lot of faith required to live life well as a Christian.

Hebrews 11:1 tell us that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

We have to realize that the physical realm around us is a limited view of things. That empty piece of sky has so much more than the eye can see.

There is so much more to the bad circumstance than you can see. There's a bigger picture. It does not mean that God caused the problem! All good gifts come from God, all evil gifts come from the devil whose agenda is only to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10). [Read "Confused About What God's Really Like?"]

We have to learn to live in the spiritual realm of believing God's Word more than we believe what we see with our eyes. God is a big God! "Who else has held the oceans in His hand? Who has measured off the heavens with His fingers? Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?" (Isaiah 40:12)

In this world we will have trouble, but Jesus said He has overcome the world. This Jesus is inside the heart of every believer. We have His nature in our spirit man. Rise up and praise God for how big he is and trust Him. Rest your head on His chest. Jesus cries with us in our earthly troubles, but He also gives us peace and joy so we don't have to wallow in grief. A peace that passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7). It truly is there for you!

"Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing" (Isa. 40:26). He's not forgotten about you. He sent Jesus to give you power to choose life. Fill your mind with God's Word.

Watch the short video, store away visual images of it, bookmark it for those times when you need to know that our Father who created this world and us has a much greater plan in our lives than we can see. This video has images and words that will make you realize how small we are and how big God is.

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All photos remain the property of Donna L. Watkins, but may be used with proper credit and link back to the website, TheNature InUs.com. Articles written by Donna L. Watkins can be reprinted with proper credit and link back to the website, TheNatureInUs.com.

Quotes

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures. -- Francis Bacon

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." – George Eliot - See more at: http://www.thenatureinus.com/#sthash.Rhtw3CRa.dpuf

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." – George Eliot - See more at: http://www.thenatureinus.com/#sthash.Rhtw3CRa.dpuf

"It's never too late to be what you might have been." -- George Eliott

"I've spent too long waiting for what's been taken from me, rather than enjoying what's been given to me." -- Unknown

“In God’s wilderness lies the hope of the world – the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and the wounds heal ere we are aware.” -- John Muir

"Faith is the bird that senses the light and sings while dawn is still dark." -- Rabindranath Tagore

"To know something about trees--about even one tree--is to know something profound about the nature of the world and our place in it." -- Gerald Jonas"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out that there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is." -- Albert CamusLike winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech. -- Aldo Leopold (1886-1948)

"It is clear that there is one main message creation has to communicate to human beings, namely, the glory of God. Not primarily the glory of creation, but the glory of God. The glory of creation and the glory of God are as different as the love poem and the love, the painting and the landscape, the ring and the marriage. It would be a great folly and a great tragedy if a man loved his wedding band more than he loved his bride." -- John Piper

"We will do better in all aspects of life if we learn to "let go" of all we hold so tightly to and realize that control is a myth and striving for it is insanity." -- Donna L. Watkins